


mission intermission

by devilsalwayscry



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Amputated Limbs, Blood, Caretaking, Gen, Minor Injuries for half demons, Post-DMC5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:28:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26698279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilsalwayscry/pseuds/devilsalwayscry
Summary: Vergil and Dante return from a mission. Vergil muses on how his life has changed.
Relationships: Dante & Nero (Devil May Cry), Dante & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Nero & Vergil (Devil May Cry)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 172





	mission intermission

**Author's Note:**

> I just missed these guys and the DMC5 SE announcement made me want to write about them a little again.

There's suction, a pop, the rushing of air around him--and Vergil falls to his back upon cold, hard asphalt.

Dante follows, crashing to the earth in a clatter of metal and leather and pained, inelegant groans somewhere to Vergil's right. A wet squelch comes after as a spray of blood arcs through the air and lands upon Vergil's chest and left arm.

He keeps his eyes closed. The blood smells foreign. Probably the arm of the beast that had been chasing them got caught in the portal, he thinks. No immediate threat.

The squeal of tires is a more pressing concern, however; Vergil cracks open his one working eye in time to watch a delivery truck skid to a halt mere inches from his leg, the driver slinging a litany of colorful curses at them from the window. He's half a mind to flip the man off, but he shows remarkable restraint in choosing not to emulate his son, and instead waves to the man with a single, lazy flick of his wrist.

"Sorry 'bout that," Dante says, from upon the pavement at Vergil's side. "Be out of your way as soon as I pick my guts up. You know how it is."

Dramatic fool, Vergil thinks, closing his eye once more. The driver of the truck sputters something in response to Dante's comment, a marked lack of concern in his gruff voice. Wherever they've ended up is apparently used to demon spawn dropping from portals fifteen feet in the air and landing upon the main street. How fascinating.

Before Vergil can begin the slow, methodical process of scanning himself for significant injuries--a habit he's gotten quite used to over the years--the man in the truck slams on the horn with a ruthlessness that makes his brow twitch. He hasn't even realized that he's half transformed until Dante's rolling onto his arm, hiding the demonic claws and infernal blue flame from view as he pats Vergil squarely on the chest with the bleeding stump of what was once his left hand.

"Not worth it," Dante says. Vergil growls; he begs to differ. "We're in Fortuna, I think, and I dunno about you, but I really don't feel like dealing with pissed off fanatics because we murdered someone in the main street."

Vergil pauses. He lets his demon form slide off of his skin, takes a slow, deep breath, and then opens his eyes.

"Fine."

Scraping themselves off of the pavement takes time, more than Vergil would care to admit. They got, perhaps, a little... carried away, as Nero would put it. Dante is missing a hand at the wrist, the part of an ear, and has more broken bones than Vergil can accurately identify, if the way he's shuffling to the curb is to go by.

For his part, Vergil has fared better, but not by much: his left eye has been gouged out, creating a considerably more horrific sight than it truly is, and he is littered in cuts deep enough that, were he human, he would have bled out two hours ago. He is frustratingly tired, the well of demonic energy within him reduced to only low embers. It is because of this that he cannot properly heal yet--it is doing what it can to keep him alive, with nothing to spare for mending such trivial injuries as a missing eye and several deep lacerations on his torso.

By the time they make it to the curb, several other cars have joined the chorus of horns blaring at them, and Vergil is rethinking his decision to not make an inappropriate gesture at the man when Dante beats him to it, with both his intact hand and the bleeding stump.

Every horn around them abruptly stops all at once.

"Childish," Vergil says, but he cannot help but to smile in response to the gesture. Somewhere between tripping his way onto the sidewalk and collapsing into the metal bench nearest to the road, he manages to grab Dante by the back of his coat, dragging him along.

Dante follows suit, joining him on the bench, half on the ground and half against Vergil's legs. He would kick him off, if he had the strength. Instead he simply lets him hang there, deadweight on his thighs.

"Call Nero," Dante says, eventually. Vergil scoffs.

"No."

"Why not. Make him bring the van around and pick us up," Dante says, a whine in his voice. Vergil kicks one leg weakly; Dante does not so much as flinch. "Don't want to walk."

Neither does Vergil. He isn't sure he could walk, truth be told. They'd gone into hell to cut off a demon invasion south of Fortuna before it could breach the human world, and then they had gotten carried away, and ventured further north, to clean up some potential resistance that was beginning to form in a colony of goat demons.

When neither group had proven a satisfying opponent, they had, of course, turned their blades upon each other, and after several hours of that--during which Vergil won forty-one to thirty-nine--they have exhausted themselves to the point of collapse.

Calling Nero for a ride, however, will undoubtedly invite a several hour long lecture regarding the state of their clothes, each other, and how long they have been gone, which is certainly somewhere around two or three days. While Nero's concern makes something warm and soft twist in Vergil's stomach, it likewise rankles at his nerves.

He isn't used to the concept of making someone _worry_ about him. He's not sure he likes it.

"Stop moping," Dante says. He's wiggled his way onto the bench proper to perch his chin upon Vergil's blood splattered chest and is peering at him from beneath a sticky, pink-hued tangle of hair. "Call your son. I'm hungry and cold and tired and don't feel like crawling there."

Vergil glares at him. "I'm not moping," he snaps, on reflex. Just to deny, on principle, that he would ever do such a thing. 

Yet he does finally reach for his coat, worming his hand beneath Dante's limp form to dig his new cellphone from the inner pocket that Nero had sewn into the fabric. The phone itself is from his son as well, a small, hefty looking little thing that does, as Nero put it, "only the bare minimum," because Vergil is "too old" to understand anything else.

Absurd. He simply has no interest in humanity's new, flashy devices and inventions. If he wanted to, he's certain he could learn the secrets to cell phones and computers in no time at all.

The phone, he must admit, does have its uses, at least. Vergil flips the device open using Dante's shoulder for leverage and is pleased to see that the thing is still working despite it's rather rough experience through the underworld. A little smeared with demon viscera, yes, but functioning, at least.

He wipes the screen on Dante's coat sleeve, then presses the button to dial Nero with a small sigh of resignation.

Two rings later, his son's voice comes over the line, tinny and a bit distant--perhaps he broke the speaker again by soaking it in demon filth--but present. "Two days," Nero says, as greeting.

Vergil grunts. "Main street and sixth," he responds, tilting his head back to verify the address at the street sign behind them. 

"I should just leave you there," Nero says. He's pouting, that much is clear. "I can smell the blood through the phone."

He can't. Or maybe he can? Vergil's not quite sure what Nero is capable of, yet. He wouldn't be terribly surprised if his son could at least sense them, assuming he's still living in his relatively new small flat in the outskirts of Fortuna, where he moved when he and Kyrie decided they were better off as friends rather than lovers.

"I'm hungry," Dante says, pushing himself close enough to Vergil's face and the phone that Vergil can feel his twin's breath on his chin. "Nero, pleeeease come get us. Walking hurts."

There's a long moment of silence on the other side, filled with that sort of pregnant pause that Vergil's come to identify as Nero trying to decide between wanting to help them because he... cares, and wanting to leave them there because he's stubborn. He seems to settle on the former, the sound of him rummaging for the van keys coming over the line for a moment before Vergil hears a door slam shut.

"Ten minutes."

Nero hangs up.

Vergil sighs, dropping the phone upon his chest. "He's angry," he says, quietly. Almost petulantly. He hates when Nero is angry with him, if only because of how it makes him feel--like he's letting him down, or something. A pointless, human feeling, but one that he's found himself incapable of ignoring the more time he spends with his foolish brother and son.

"Aw, you know he just cares about us," Dante says, tone mocking but words true all the same. "He's a good kid." He pats Vergil's left cheek with his thankfully in tact hand. "Now shush, I'm gonna take a nap."

And he does, the lazy lout.

* * *

Vergil wakes some time later to the sound of a running engine and the gentle rhythm of Nero's driving. He blinks into awareness slowly, his injuries and exhaustion leaving him feeling hazy and disoriented, and glances over to his left, where Nero sits in the driver's seat.

He hadn't realized he'd passed out. The reality of that bothers him. Vulnerable and out in the open as he was, he should have remained on high alert until Nero had arrived to take over the watch; instead, he'd apparently drifted off nearly as quickly as Dante, no doubt lulled into such a state by his grossly underestimated exhaustion.

Vergil clears his throat, straightening himself up into a more respectable position. He catches a glimpse of himself in the side mirror and hums at the sight of his desecrated eye socket. Annoying that his body has so far neglected that particular injury, although it seems Nero might have wiped up some of the blood, his face considerably cleaner than he would have anticipated. 

The wounds on his chest and arms are slightly improved as well, as if someone has washed them out in a precursory sort of way. Vergil glances up to the rearview mirror to see that Dante is spread upon the back seat, his amputated hand resting upon his chest and wrapped in a bandage that has already become crimson with his blood. 

When next he turns to Nero, his son is watching him out of the corner of his eyes, fingers tapping impatiently on the steering wheel as if he is waiting for Vergil to say something.

"... Thank you," Vergil says, and Nero releases a rush of breath, his shoulders going limp with the motion, as if he's deflated slightly at the sound of Vergil's voice.

"You're welcome," Nero says. He tilts his head. "Demons, each other, or both?"

Vergil laughs, quietly, a sort of pained huff beneath his breath that would've been uncharacteristic of him not two months ago. Things have changed so much since they returned from hell, though. 

"Both." 

Nero sighs, deflating further. "Should've figured. It's sword wounds on you both, more than anything else. Idiots."

Vergil just hums. Of course the injuries are from each other--no other demon could get close to causing such harm, at least not one they would have gone to unprepared. 

This does not bother Vergil nearly as much as it bothers Nero. Hurting each other is just the way of things, for them. It has always been such. 

There is something different about it now, however, that did not exist before. A sort of understanding. A mutual need, met and served at the end of each other's blades. They fight now not to kill or to defend, but to appease--the simmering fire beneath their skin, the growling voices in their heads, each other. There is no harm in it, now; not any that matters.

Explaining this to Nero is difficult. Vergil is not sure there are even human words to do it; the concept is not human, after all, and humans are not prone to the same sort of instinctual need as demons or half-demons are.

Yet he thinks there is understanding in Nero's eyes as he turns to check Vergil over at the next red light, his blue eyes sharp and focused, flicking between injures as if he can see through Vergil's vest to each individual bruise and cut. He knows that there is no point in asking them not to do this, as they will do it anyway, from now until one of them dies or the world ends or, most likely, both.

Still, that doesn't stop him from worrying. 

"Couldn't have gone easy on each other, huh," Nero says, his thin fingers trailing over a particularly deep laceration in Vergil's right breast before he turns his attention once more to the road. "Did you really have to cut his hand off?"

"That was a demon," Vergil says, sparing his brother another glance in the mirror. The idiot had stuck his hand into the maw of a particularly rabid lizard demon in some bid to do... something. Vergil isn't quite sure what. Something stupid, no doubt.

"And the eye?"

"Dante," he responds, with a shrug. "His demon did not appreciate being pinned."

Nero doesn't ask for details. He simply sighs, shaking his head as if he's listening to a child explain why he's picked another fight in the playground and not why two grown half-demon men have dismembered each other for sport. The sort of long-suffering quality to his sigh makes Vergil sit up a bit straighter, regardless of the discomfort in his chest and limbs to do so, an impulsive reaction that comes with a faint memory of his childhood, of a mother sighing quietly and fondly as she sticks bandages on two bruised demon children.

Nero reminds him of Eva in many ways, a fact that had been uncomfortable at first, dredging up long buried memories with his newfound humanity and bringing them to the forefront of Vergil's mind. With time, however, he has grown to appreciate the minor things in Nero's countenance that remind Vergil of her. The fiery look in his eyes or the strained sigh he makes when he is dealing with Dante's more unsavory habits could have been pulled straight from Vergil's memories, for how well they mirror Eva's own.

The car comes to a stop in a dingy alleyway, and Vergil blinks himself back to awareness once more, shocked to find that more time has passed than he'd anticipated and they are already at Nero's flat. Injury is making him weak, mentally and physically, it seems. 

"Can you walk?" Nero asks, eyeing Vergil warily. 

He nods. Even if he couldn't, he would find a way to make it so--he is not keen on Nero carrying him up to his apartment, regardless of who may or may not be around to see it. He has standards, after all.

Dante seems to have no such qualms. He is still asleep when Nero pulls open the back door of the van, sighing quietly at the sight of Dante's slumbering face and the sound of his perhaps too exaggerated snoring. Despite Nero's feigned annoyance, he still picks Dante up in his demon arms bridal-style, holding him close enough to Nero's chest that it could be seen as almost tender as he makes his way up the fire escape and toward his small flat within.

Vergil follows at a distance, watching his son and his brother from several paces back. This is strange, still. A small part of him wants to flee, to leave now that he knows Dante is in good hands to find himself a secluded place where he can lick his wounds in peace, away from the potential threat that Nero and Dante pose. While they'd never attack him like this--on the contrary, Nero is prone to healing, the stash of medical supplies and magical ointments in his cabinet a testament to this predisposition of his--he cannot quite shake the feeling that they might.

Old habits die hard.

Nero seems to sense the hesitation within him. He pauses at his flat window, tilting his head toward Vergil in question. He wouldn't stop Vergil if he wanted to leave, Vergil knows. He'd even understand. Nero's good at that, better than Dante has ever been, and Vergil appreciates him for it, in a way he's never quite been able to express.

"I finished furnishing the spare room, if you want it," Nero says, before he turns back to the window and uses one of his free human arms to open it. "Up to you."

And then he's gone, slipping into the flat with Dante in tow to allow Vergil a moment to think.

Two months (and a lifetime as V), and Nero knows him better than his twin ever has. Perhaps he's what they needed, in the end--a mediator, a score keeper. Someone to intervene when they could not find the words to do so.

Vergil smiles at that. He's proud of him, although he's never found a way to express that sentiment, either.

Yet as he steps into the apartment window, gently shutting it behind him and allowing himself to be ushered along by Nero toward the bathroom for treatment, he gets the feeling that, perhaps, Nero knows.


End file.
